> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://braintrust.dev/docs/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Observe your application > Turn every production request into a searchable trace. Filter, analyze, and drill into real-time data to identify issues and gather signal for improving your AI system. After instrumenting your application, Braintrust captures every request as traces that you can view, filter, and analyze in real time. This observability enables you to monitor production behavior, identify issues, and gather data for improving your application. ## Why observe in Braintrust Observability in Braintrust creates a feedback loop between production and evaluation. Logs use the same data structure as experiments, which means: * Instrumentation code works for both logging and evaluation * Traces capture identical data in production and testing * Scores and feedback apply to both logs and experiments * Production data seamlessly becomes evaluation datasets This unified structure lets you iterate faster and maintain consistency across your development workflow. ## View your logs The **Logs** page displays all traces from your application in a searchable, filterable table. Each row represents a complete trace with its root span. Logging Screenshot You can: * Browse traces and individual spans, in the UI or from the terminal with [`bt view logs`](/reference/cli/view). * Group related traces by metadata or tags. * Create custom columns to surface important values. * Extract prompts to iterate in playgrounds. * Apply tags to organize traces. * Download logs as CSV or JSON, or pull them locally with [`bt sync pull`](/reference/cli/sync). ## Discover insights with Topics **Topics** automatically analyze and classify your logs to surface patterns without manual review. Each trace is analyzed by **facets** that extract short labels, then similar labels are clustered into named **topics** like user intents, sentiment, and issues. Use Topics for: * **Blind-spot detection**: Surface user request patterns and system gaps you didn't know to look for. * **Silent failure detection**: Catch quality issues that don't trip explicit checks. * **Product roadmap signals**: Cluster real user requests into themes to inform what to build. * **Targeted evaluation datasets**: Filter classified logs to build datasets for focused evals. Built-in facets include Task (user intents), Sentiment (emotional tone), and Issues (agent problems). You can also create custom facets for domain-specific analysis. See [Get started with Topics](/observe/topics) for details. ## Filter and search Find specific traces using multiple approaches: * **Filters**: Use the **Filter** menu for point-and-click filtering, or write SQL for precise queries. Apply via the UI, CLI, or API. * **Common filters**: Paste [ready-made filter patterns](/observe/filter#common-filters) for typical queries. * **Saved views**: Save useful combinations as [custom table views](/observe/view-logs#create-custom-table-views). * **Loop**: Ask natural language questions about your logs. ## Monitor with dashboards Custom dashboards aggregate metrics across your logs and experiments. Track request counts, latency, token usage, costs, scores, and custom metrics over time. Dashboards help you: * Visualize trends and anomalies * Compare performance across time periods * Drill into specific data points * Share insights with your team ## Use Loop [** Loop**](/loop) is Braintrust's AI agent that understands your data structure and helps you explore logs through natural language. Available on both the **Logs** page and individual trace pages, Loop lets you ask questions, identify patterns, and get insights without writing queries. See [Analyze logs](/loop#analyze-logs) and [Analyze individual traces](/loop#analyze-individual-traces) for more details. ## Next steps * [View your logs](/observe/view-logs) in the Braintrust dashboard * [Discover insights with Topics](/observe/topics) * [Use Loop](/loop) to analyze logs with natural language * [Filter and search](/observe/filter) for specific traces * [Score online](/evaluate/score-online) to evaluate production quality